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Woodrow Wilsonís
supreme goal in World War I was to broker an effective and lasting peace. He enumerated
his war aims in his famous Fourteen Points
speech, with the last point calling for the creation of a League of Nations. At the
Paris Peace Conference in 1919, he fought hard, but was not
able to incorporate his Fourteen Points in the treaty. He did,
however, make sure the League of Nations was an inextricable
part of the final agreement. He hoped that once the League was
established, it could rectify the treaty's many
shortcomings
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Of the treatyís 440 articles, the first twenty-six comprise
the
Covenant of the League of Nations.
This covenant describes the operational workings of the League.
Article Ten obliges signatories to guarantee the political
independence and territorial integrity of all member nations
against outside aggression, and to consult together to oppose
aggression when it occurs. This became the critical point, and
the one that ultimately prevented the treatyís ratification by
the Senate.
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Senator Henry Cabot Lodge
led the opposition. Lodge and
Wilson were bitter political foes, but they also had
legitimate differences of views on the League and on the
covenantís Tenth Article. Lodge believed that the League,
under Article Ten, could require the United States to commit
economic or military force to maintain the collective security
of member nations. Wilson did not share this interpretation of
Article 10 - an article that Wilson had written himself.
Wilson stated that the veto power enjoyed by the United States
in the League Council could prevent any League sanction, but
if a unanimous League voted sanctions, the vote amounted only
to advice, in any case. The United States would not be,
therefore, legally bound to the Leagueís dictates. However,
Wilson did declare, that the United States would be morally
bound to adhere to the Leagueís resolutions. A moral bond was,
for Wilson, infinitely superior to a mere legal one. Article
Ten was, for him, "a very grave and solemn obligation."
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Wilson and Lodge surely could have found a middle ground.
Some sort of compromise language could have been drafted.
There were pro-treaty Republicans who could have formed a
coalition with the Democrats to win the necessary two-thirds
majority. But Wilson blocked compromise after he suffered a
massive stroke in October 1919. No accommodation with the
opposition was found on either side. The treaty was voted
down.
The United States remained officially at war until June of
1921 when President
Warren Harding
approved a joint congressional resolution proclaiming the war
with the Central Powers ended, and later signed a separate
peace treaty. The resolution and the treaty specified that
although the United States was not a party to the Versailles
Treaty, it retained all rights and advantages accorded to it
under the pactís terms, excluding the League Covenant. The
United States never joined the League of Nations.
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Woodrow Wilson: | | | | | |
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